Article #1 in A Seven-Article Series >>>>> An Overview of the History of Taiwan: The Case for Independence

An Overview of the History of Taiwan:  The Case for Independence

 

Gary Marvin Davison

 

Introduction

 

The geopolitical entity of Taiwan has been independent of any government controlling all of China for 128 years.  The historical case for Taiwanese independence has already been made by the Taiwanese people, based on a number of compelling facts.  There was very little Han Chinese settlement of Taiwan until the 17^th century, during which two outside ruling powers held sway before a reluctant Qing court ultimately decided to make a claim on the island, thus becoming the third outside ruling force.  With the exception of a decade at the end of the Qing period of rule, that dynasty ruled Taiwan with a light touch and attempted to limit Han Chinese settlement so as not to spark resistance from the always potentially restive aboriginal population.  Taiwan’s introduction to significant elements of modernity came during a half-century of rule by a Japanese imperial administration that controlled the island from 1895 until 1945.  Contemporary development and the evolution of an independent political economy then came under a Han Chinese regime that fled to the island as a refuge and redoubt from the forces to which that regime had lost control of China by 1949.  Full-fledged independence for the Taiwanese people themselves came in a series of events that unfolded from 1987 into the present year of 1911.

 

About one hundred miles separate Taiwan from China across the Taiwan Strait, the distinctive island of Taiwan emerged from the Pacific Ocean about a million years ago through geological processes similar to those that produced the Japanese and Philippine archipelagos.  Over thousands of years, lush grasses sprouted across the western plains, broadleaved deciduous trees and conifers gave shape to the forests, and 1,500 species of subtropical and tropical plants further defined the island’s exquisite beauty.  Across the luscious landscape roamed fauna such as Formosan black bears, bats, boars, deer, foxes, rabbits, squirrels, and many species of birds and insects.

 

This natural life evolved on an island that stretches 245 miles northeast to southwest and 90 miles northwest to southeast.  Mountains rise from the eastern coast and run spine-like along the island’s interior.  Several mountain peaks soar to 10,000 feet and beyond, the highest rising to 13,114 feet above sea level.  At the very highest elevations snow falls and lingers on the terrain.  A fertile plain covers most of western Taiwan, and good farmland exists also at the northern and southern extremes of the island.  Taiwan’s climate is subtropical in the north and tropical in the south, with an average rainfall of 100 inches across the island and with up to 200 inches falling in some years at certain locations.

 

Long before the Shang (ca. 1500-1000 B. C.) and Zhou (ca. 1000-246 B. C.) dynasties brought an identifiable civilization to China, and longer still before the Qin (221-206 B. C.) and Han (202 B. C.-220 A. D.) dynasties developed an enduring style of Chinese political rule, the first of Taiwan’s inhabitants migrated to the island, presumably from China.  These very first inhabitants were destined to be absorbed by later arrivals, those who came either from Southeastern China or from islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific about 4,000 B. C.  These were people of Austronesian cultural traits, giving evidence of Malayo-Polynesian linguistic affinities linking them to the original inhabitants of the Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, and many islands of the Pacific Ocean.  On Taiwan these people eventually sorted themselves into groups that came to be identified as the Ami, Bunun, Paiwan, Puyuma, Rukyai, Saisyat, Taroko, Taya, Thao, Tsou, and Yami people;  these are the yuanzhumin (“original inhabitants”) who comprise 2% of the population on Taiwan and present an enduring cultural legacy that is a highly important part of the island’s unique social fabric.

 

These aboriginal people of Taiwan had the island substantially to themselves from about 4,000 B. C. until 1624, a period of approximately 5,600 years that included the rise and fall of the culturally important Shang and Zhou, the governmentally foundational Qin and Han, and those dynasties that rose and fell during years corresponding to the European Middle Ages:  the Sui (581-618 A. D.), Tang (618-907), Song (960-1279), Yuan (1264-1368), and the Ming (1368-1644).  Only in the last two decades of the latter dynasty did Taiwan undergo significant non-aboriginal settlement, and this settlement occurred against Ming prohibitions.

 

There had in the meantime, though, been some impulses of interest that resulted in exploratory and scattered activity by parties launching from China.  In 239 A. D. the kingdom of Wu, one of the many states that rose and fell during the long period of Chinese disunity between the fall of the Han (220 A. D.) and the establishment of the Sui (581 A. D.), sent an expeditionary force that explored parts of Taiwan then returned to China.  Archeological and a few written records indicate that a smattering of migrants made their own way across the Taiwan Strait during the 7^th century and established the first slim evidence of Han Chinese settlement.  Another such period of scattered Han Chinese settlement occurred during the 11^th century, and in the late 13^th century the physically vigorous and geographically mobile Mongols skirted Taiwan proper but did take control of Penghu (the Pescadores Islands), establishing the 6^th Circuit Intendancy as part of the Yuan Dynasty’s far-flung claims and in the spirit of Mongol quest for territory across Eurasia.  But when the rulers of the Ming ousted the Mongols and established the new dynasty in 1368, the 6^th Circuit Intendancy was disbanded, and strict anti-emigration policies were established that included proscriptions against Han Chinese settlement of Taiwan.  These prohibitions were largely effective for all but the waning years of the Ming Dynasty, so that into the 17^th century Chinese-style imperial power held no significance for Taiwanese history and any Han Chinese settlement of Taiwan was limited to a few coastal settlements that posed no challenge to the aboriginal population spread throughout the island. 

 

There then began a 400-year period in which the constituent elements of Taiwanese population became more complex, and during which a series of outside rulers imposed their governance on the island’s people.  The first of these outside powers to occupy Taiwan arrived as representatives of the Netherlands.